> I now laugh when I hear people say "money doesn't make you happy", not so much for the money part, but the fallacy of using an emotion like "being happy" as the measure for a quality life.
Oh come on. You know what they mean, you're being deliberately obtuse in order to characterize someone else as ignorant. Which only reflects badly on you.
That old cliche may be trite and simplistic, but it's making a simple point that sometimes needs to be made; money won't solve all of your problems.
Of course it does solve a lot of really bad problems, so it's also a bit of a myopic view.
> you're being deliberately obtuse in order to characterize someone else as ignorant
That was merely one example of the phenomenon of our culture being obsessed with 'happiness' as the measure of success. There are countless other examples I could have used which doesn't require reading into someone's 'real meaning' when using a cliche. The general point still stands, 'happy' is still frequently used interchangably with 'a good life' in our culture.
I can't count the amount of times I've heard people negatively judge other successful people's lives because they seemed dour or aren't walking around laughing/smiling all the time or some other surface level measures. That to me is what is arrogant.
Nor because I laugh (in my head) when I come across people chasing temporary emotional highs or measuring the quality of other's lives based on that doesn't mean I'm belittling them or looking down upon them because they haven't made the same realizations or made similar psychological/philosophical/personal investments in their own life. I spent a big portion of my life doing the same, doesn't make me better.
Oh come on. You know what they mean, you're being deliberately obtuse in order to characterize someone else as ignorant. Which only reflects badly on you.
That old cliche may be trite and simplistic, but it's making a simple point that sometimes needs to be made; money won't solve all of your problems.
Of course it does solve a lot of really bad problems, so it's also a bit of a myopic view.